


A Place to Lie Down

by nerigby96



Series: Backstage Echoes [4]
Category: Martin and Lewis
Genre: Backstage, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Smoking, Stress, Watching Someone Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerigby96/pseuds/nerigby96
Summary: Backstage.Colgate.
Relationships: Jerry Lewis/Dean Martin
Series: Backstage Echoes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1544167
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	A Place to Lie Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [togetherboth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/togetherboth/gifts).



He’s checked his watch at least a dozen times. It’s not that he’s bored, exactly, just restless. Frustrated. The kid chatters and flits around the stage, checking the cameras, the lights, each mark and cue card and prop, while all Dean has to hold his attention is a cigarette – his tenth, maybe, since rehearsals started. He kicks it on his heel a couple times, but it gets old fast. The kid flickers past, and Dean readies himself to rehearse, catches the apologetic look in his eye; then he’s gone again, calling to some stagehand. Dean sighs. He pitches the cigarette and lights another, strolling into the wings. There’s no air back here. He smokes and dreams of a cool breeze in his hair, a familiar weight in his hand, and an endless rolling green. _Maybe…_ He glances back onstage – the kid’s still fussing behind a camera – and then down the corridor. It would be easy to slip out; his clubs are calling from the trunk of his convertible.

Then he spots something in the shadows, and all rebellious thoughts trickle away.

***

Dean’s gone. _Dean’s gone._ He doesn’t want to worry, not yet, not now, but his heart flutters anyhow. His mouth keeps up its breakneck pace; it answers and asks and informs in that same rhythm: calm, mature, serial Jerry Lewis – the nine-year-old down for the count, the Idiot shackled and docile – but his brain invents and frets and panics. He makes some excuse about checking wires and scurries backstage, glancing in corners, poking his head into the dressing room, slipping down the corridor and out the back to check his car’s still there. _He brought his clubs_ , he thinks. _He’s gone but he’ll come back and he’ll be nice and we’ll be friends again._ But the convertible sits gleaming in its reserved spot. Relieved – but also vaguely wishing it wasn’t still there, if only to explain his partner’s absence – he comes back, stands in the dark beyond the stage and smokes, thinking, front teeth worrying his index finger. Countless horrors and tragedies unfold in the darkest corners of his mind. His rational side knows Dean’s okay, but still those fatalistic musings churn.

Then he peers into the shadows, and his breath catches.

***

 _How’d you get canned?_ they’ll ask. _Who, me? Oh, I lost the two most famous men in America._ Kingman kneads the rumble in his gut. It isn’t worth it, he thinks. Not worth the sleepless nights, the ulcers. Not worth the stress of some skinny kid ordering them around then sneaking off with his indifferent partner. Like two kids seeking a shadowy corner to do a bit of necking. _Jesus._ He shakes his head, craving an aspirin, something stronger. He knows he’s being harsh, thinking crazy, but it’s hard to be rational when your stars take a powder in the middle of rehearsals.

But maybe he’s overreacting. They could be talking backstage. Maybe they’ve slipped outside for some fresh air. They’ll come back, stroll out as though nothing happened. Maybe one or both of them will casually take scissors to an unsuspecting stagehand. Someone else’s problem for a blissful five minutes. Then they’ll turn on him again, and the antacids will go back to work. Still, five minutes. Backstage, in the dark and the relative peace, five minutes sounds beautiful.

Then he looks into the shadows and stares.

A bed, from another sketch, another episode. They shared it then, too. He stands transfixed. Frustration flickers, but he can’t bring himself to wake them. They’re underneath the covers: the older man half-curled, fist tucked against his mouth, the picture of contentment; the younger sprawls, one foot hanging out, twitching, taking up most of the mattress. And in his sleep, he mutters, whimpers softly; and instinctively his partner comes close, coaxes him to hide his face in a soft warm chest, lose himself in the gentle beating of his heart.

Kingman blinks and steps away. He feels strange. Like he’s prying, peeping. His mind slips to their act. It’s par for the course where they’re concerned, this kind of closeness. Even on the show they cuddle. Kiss. But this is different. He doesn’t know what it means, but it forces him back another step. A new kind of stress builds in his gut, cold flames licking at his heart. _Take me back_ , he thinks. _Take me back to ulcers and ruptures and aneurysms. Take me away from whatever_ this _is._

Whatever it is, he already feels like he’s stayed too long, seen too much. If his brain were working right, he knows he could think of a clever way to rouse them, but right now all he wants is a dark room and a place to lie down. Chuckling, he thinks, _They had the right idea._ And then, with a guilty flinch, he remembers his first thought, about the kids looking for a little privacy. Crazily, he wonders if he wasn't too far off.

 _Oh, no no no._ He shakes his head. _Get_ that _outta there._ He rubs his eyes; he's getting a migraine again. Must be a bad one, giving him crazy thoughts like that. He looks back at the bed in time to see Dean's hand sleepily stroke the nape of Jerry's neck, to hear a soft moan, the rustle of the covers as they pull each other closer.

He's seen enough. His head throbs. He figures he's got maybe two more shows in him before he'll need to take a vacation. It's too much. _They're_ too much. Let someone else deal with them.

He looks again, just once. He thinks Dean might have stirred, and watches as he shifts his head so he can rest his mouth against Jerry's brow. Kingman's heart thuds. _Cute_ , he thinks and has to fight a hysterical laugh. That settles it, then; definitely time for a vacation.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not here.  
> But some time ago togetherboth mused on Tumblr that someone ought to write a fic about the time the Colgate director found the boys asleep in a bed backstage and didn't have the heart to wake them; she also 'nudge-nudged' that it should be me.  
> So here we are.  
> Thank you so much for being so wonderful and supportive <3  
> Everyone should leave right now and read her incredible fics.


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